


Run

by Katsitting (Nekositting)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, If I made this into a full blow fic it would be a triad, Kind of a Voldemort Wins AU, M/M, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Triad - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 13:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11275932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Katsitting
Summary: “Yes.” Harry finally bit out, ignoring Voldemort’s pleased hum.“An excellent choice.”Harry could not help but feel like he’d made a huge mistake.





	Run

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Voldemort/Harry Potter/ Hermione Granger + Run
> 
> Warnings: Canon-typical violence
> 
> Since this was a triad, it did not fit in either of my tumblr prompt stories. I hope you all enjoy! If you would like a story, please send me a request for one on my Tumblr.
> 
> If you like Tomione, I recommend going to my pseud Nekositting.

She knew what she needed to do. It didn’t matter that Harry had a completely different plan in mind.

She absolutely refused to allow Harry to behave so recklessly. She would sooner kiss Malfoy before she even entertained the idea of letting Harry walk into that field to be murdered on the spot by Voldemort.

It was how she found herself following behind Harry, the invisibility cloak wrapped around her frame. She had spelled herself silent, knowing well that if someone heard her that her entire plan would fall apart. It wasn’t exactly a well-planned mission, but it was all she had been able to manage in the short time Harry had given. She had wanted to take Ron with her, guilt cutting through her mind as she moved.

But there had simply been no time. Harry had stormed off so suddenly that Hermione barely managed to grab his invisibility cloak and her wand. She was sure that if she had spent a second longer to tell Ron, she would have lost Harry completely, and that simply would not do.

She followed him as he moved through the familiar entrance of the forbidden forest, the trees towering above them both like angry giants. She had always been intimidated by the place—the darkness between the trees seeming more the bottom of an ocean than land. It was an enigma—one that she had noticed as a young first year when she started her magical education in Hogwarts.

Though now, instead of curiosity and intrigue—entering the Forbidden Forest felt significantly more frightening.

But she did not let her fear overtake her, keeping her shoulders straight as she kept up with Harry’s brusque pace into the thicket of trees. She slipped easily behind him, focusing on nothing else but the way the muscles of his back rippled through his shirt as he moved.

It was fortunate, in all honesty, that she knew the forest as well as Harry did. It would have been inconvenient to trip over the roots and the bushes as Harry cut quickly through the underbrush. She could only imagine just how well anyone else would have fared, and the odds of their success were definitely low.

It was a good thing she was determined to rescue him from himself.

After an eternity of silence, she paused when Harry finally stepped through a final thicket of trees. The trees seemed to tower higher than those back at the entrance, their trunks thicker and older. She wanted to follow behind him, but the moment edges of the trees gave way to a clearing, exposed to anyone that stepped into its soft earth, she knew it was best to remain where she was.

The clearing was an empty—no animals or trees in sight despite the fact it was located right in the center of the Forbidden Forest.

Harry walked until he stopped right at the center of it—his red shirt standing out among the sea of blues and blacks. It was like a beacon of light, one that drew the eye. Hermione was sure that anyone that was waiting there had to have seen—it was hard to miss, really.

She stiffened when the Deatheaters stepped from the shadows of the trees at the other end. It was no surprise to her that they melded so easily beneath those shadows. They were dark wizards and dressed entirely in black.

She forced herself to remain at the edges of the trees despite her unease.

It wasn’t the most Gryffindor-like thing, but she knew that this was the better approach. Here, she could maintain a birds-eye view of the clearing, able to count who was actually present and who was not. If she was actually going to do this, she could not afford to follow Harry further in when there was no guarantee she would not be found. Voldemort was a powerful wizard, and although the cloak was powerful, Hermione suspected Dumbledore at times could see through it.

“Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.” She heard Voldemort’s sibilant voice then, the high enough to draw goosebumps up her arms. “At last.”

She tried not to shudder at the sound of his voice, choosing instead to focus on the way Harry stood still as a stature. She saw him clench his hands into fists, noting with dread the way his lips parted to inhale a shaky breath into his lungs.

To anyone else he might had looked composed. But to her, Harry looked anything but. He looked absolutely terrified of what was to come.

She was seized by the urge to throw the cloak and to move to his side, to take that shaking hand into her own and draw him away from the nightmare unfolding before his eyes.

Instead, however, she watched as Voldemort broke away from his horde of sycophants, the jeers from Bellatrix tempting her to hex the woman on the spot. It was frightening enough to face Voldemort, it was totally unnecessary for the madwoman to keep taunting Harry the way she was.

“Are you prepared to die, Harry? Have you resigned yourself to your destiny?” Hermione swallowed thickly, sweat beading on her brow when Harry did not say a word. Harry was tense, but otherwise, did not even incline his head in response.

“Are you not going to raise your wand?” Voldemort asked, unbothered by the fact that Harry had yet to say a word. She wound her fingers tightly around her wand to resist the adrenaline thrumming through her veins—she wanted to snatch Harry in that second, but she knew that giving in to such an impulse would be a mistake. Voldemort had yet to drop his guard—and there were too many Deatheaters watching avidly.

She needed to be patient—to wait. She could not afford to fail now with so much at stake.

“No. I want this to end.” Harry finally broke the silence, and Hermione immediately repressed the groan of frustration that wanted to crawl up her throat. She felt terror and fury all at once—unable to refrain from pointing her wand at both of them now that the moment of truth was creeping steadily closer.

_Just a little longer now._

Harry had spoken and Voldemort would surely deliver. The monster had been preparing to kill Harry from the moment Harry had been born—it was almost sick how obsessed the man was with Harry.

“I wish Voldemort will grant.” Voldemort crooned.

Hermione’s breath caught when Voldemort raised the elder wand, pointing it directly at Harry. She could see the glee in the dark lord’s red eyes at finally having Harry willingly surrender before him—noting the way Harry’s shoulders tensed further beneath Voldemort’s imposing height.

“Avada Keda—“ She didn’t bother to listen to the rest, shooting immediately from where she had been hidden in the trees to cast her several spells. She blasted Harry away from the toxic green flash of Voldemort’s curse, sighing with relief when the killing curse missed Harry completely. She knew Harry would be sore for a few days following this—the one her spells throwing Harry several feet away from Voldemort.

Her cover was blown, but it hardly mattered now.

She rushed quickly through the torrent of spells launched in her direction. The moment she reached Harry’s prostrate form, she grabbed Harry by the scruff of his shirt and forced him up to his feet. He looked disoriented, his cheek black with the dirt from the ground.

But she did not stop to ask him if he was alright, instead she turned her attention to the darkness ahead at the other end of the clearing. It was dark there—the black of it more tar like than anything else, but it would be the perfect place to hide.

“We have to go.” She whispered, before grabbing him by the arm and yanking him along with her. She moved quickly, mindful of the gnarled tree roots and the bushes on the ground as she rushed through the forest.

“Hermione!” He shouted after a second, seeming to gather enough of his senses to speak, but she ignored him. Grateful that she had not lost the cloak when she had acted. She forced them through an unseen path, aware that moving in that direction could either lead them back to Hogwarts or to some unknown part of the forest.

It didn’t matter to her where they really went—she had no plan and no bloody clue where exactly they were. They simply just needed to _move_ and she would make sure they did.

Harry would not die tonight.

When she did not hear the tell-tale sign of footsteps behind her, she finally stopped. Harry had done nothing to help maneuver their way out of the woods. She took that moment to gather the cloak around her, making to drape it over Harry’s shoulders.

“We need to hurry before they find us.” She whispered fiercely, noticing the several different emotions shifting in Harry’s eyes. He did not make to slide underneath it. The inches between them in the dark seemingly endless.

She hesitated.

“I need to die, Hermione.” She winced, watching resignation and determination flash in his bright green eyes.

“I can’t just let you di—“

Harry twisted away from her before she could finish, the inches between them widening to feet in a matter of seconds. She was so shocked she didn’t think to stop him, her fingers reaching out but unable to catch him.

“You don’t understand, I _have_ to. Voldemort will—“ Harry suddenly stopped, the widening of his eyes the only warning she had before a spell collided with her from behind, slamming her painfully against a tree.

Her body exploded with agony, a cry escaping her throat.

She landed painfully on the ground after the shockwave of the magic wore off, fully expecting in that moment for death to meet her. She was panicking, the hysteria flowing through her making her breaths leave quickly. But she could not _bloody move_.

Her limbs were frozen.

She struggled, frustrated and helpless as she heard crunching footsteps a short distance away from where they laid. The location of the steps announcing that they _definitely_ did not belong to Harry.

The steps continued until they stopped beside her, the silence in that second elevating her panic into crippling terror.

And then all she saw was white.

 

* * *

 

Harry was panicking.

He could not find Hermione in the darkness, the sudden flash of magic the last second he had heard her voice. It was miraculous how the cloak had not fallen away from Hermione’s shoulders, but rather than relieve him, it made his stomach flutter with his nerves. He had not expected her to follow him—he never would have guessed she would just show up when he was preparing to fulfill the mission Dumbledore had set out for him.

He tried to make sense of where she was in the dark, moving frantically through the trees to find just where he had heard the thump of a body hitting wood. He knew she had hit it—the pain in her cry a clear enough sign of that. But that was the extent of his knowledge, he had no bloody idea where she could be.

“Well, well this is quite the surprise.” Harry jumped, his thoughts of Hermione completely derailed.

He whirled around, immediately honing in on the sole figure standing a short distance away, his robes blending into the shadows of the trees. The Voldemort was striking, his inhuman face making the wizard look more a demon than a person.

It came as no surprise when Voldemort’s magic suddenly enveloped him. The power overwhelming as it bore down on Harry that he struggled to stand tall under the onslaught. The dark lord’s magic consumed his senses entirely, resembling the daze that came after a powerful confounding curse. Harry’s lungs felt like they was inhaling tar rather than clean air, Voldemort’s power thick and oppressive.

It was too bloody much.

“I believe I asked you to come _alone_ , Harry. I find myself disappointed in your intelligence.” Voldemort did not sound disappointed at all, but amused at the sudden turn of events. Harry scowled despite the sickness in his gut, fighting off the lightheadedness from struggling to breathe properly. It felt oddly like drowning—like his lungs were too weak to truly handle the task of processing oxygen.

It made Harry all too aware of the power this man had—of the distinct power differences between them both.

And he was expected to defeat the most powerful dark wizard in Britain?  Harry wanted to laugh hysterically, but held himself back. Hermione was still somewhere in the clearing, he could not afford to get distracted now.

“I came alone, I swear. I didn’t know—“

“ _Silence_.” Voldemort hissed, the amusement in his tone evaporating the second Harry tried to speak. “You have disregarded a simple task. Your death was to be quick, a mercy for your compliance. It seems…my generosity was misplaced.”

Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying with all his might to avoid cutting his gaze to where he believed Hermione could be. He didn’t want to announce to Voldemort indirectly that they were not alone—that his friend was still somewhere in the darkness, likely unconscious.

But there was a doubt nagging at the back of his mind. Harry had not seen who cast the curse—it could have been the dark lord that had done it for all he knew. The man could already know Hermione was there—

 _No, I have to believe he doesn’t know. I_ have _to._

“Kill me, if you must. Torture me if you want, just _end_ it.” Harry sucked in breath after greedy breath when the monster stepped further away from the trees, the shadows melting away from where they clung to the dark lord’s robes. Each foot of space that disappeared between them, setting his heart racing.

Harry could never get over the sight of him—the red in his eyes so vivid that it easily defeated the rich red of Gryffindor Tower. They sang of rage and bloodlust—of a hunger that Harry had seen once before in the gaze of the young Tom Riddle his second year. He looked nothing like the handsome Tom Riddle, however. Voldemort had abandoned his old human skin years ago—the severing of his soul from his body and the heavy dark magic use atrophying once handsome features. Now, Voldemort’s skin glimmered beneath the moonlight like the scales of a snake, emphasizing rather than erasing just how pale and monstrous the man was.

He resembled more a demon than a man—the only similarities between his old self and his newer form, the malice in his eyes.

“You dare give Voldemort orders?” Voldemort hissed, and Harry tried his best to repress the laugh that wanted to come up his throat. It was ridiculous really. Even when Harry’s own wishes lined up with the wizard, Harry still somehow managed to piss the dark lord off.

Just how much of a control freak was this man? Fate definitely had something against Harry. It was just not bloody possible that the day could turn out this way.

“You will die when I see fit to end you—“

Harry snorted derisively, his lips twisting into a feral smile when he caught sight of Voldemort’s lips twist into a scowl.

_Good._

“You and I both know you’ve failed to kill me time and time again. This is the closet you’ve ever been to my death, _Tom._ ” Harry could not help himself, something savage curling in his gut as he watched Voldemort’s eyes narrow in anger. Harry wanted to provoke, to give the man no chance to think it suspect just how quickly Harry had given himself up for death.

Harry needed to consume all of Voldemort’s attention, Hermione was still somewhere in the dark. Harry needed to buy time, and he would. If it meant that he would end up tortured at the end of Voldemort’s wand, let it. And it was very likely it would. Harry was all too aware of just how often his mouth got him into deeper trouble.

It was fortunate that Voldemort was as obsessed as he was. Harry doubted this idea would have been as successful if that weren’t the case.

“ _Do not speak that name_!” Harry laughed, unable to hold it at the sight of Voldemort’s seething rage.

It was the only warning Harry had before, Voldemort was on him. Harry gasped when the taller wizard just bloody crossed the short distance between them in _seconds_ , his body a blur in the darkness. Harry felt rather than saw the instant Voldemort wrapped his hand rightly around his throat, a strange croak the only sound Harry was capable of making.

Then Voldemort was lifting him up by his throat, until their faces were level.

Harry could not help looking into Voldemort’s red eyes, then. Voldemort’s eyes were like rubies in the darkness, the only source of color in a sea of monochromatic blues and blacks. Harry was helplessly riveted by the sight, sickened and entranced by the several shades of maroon and red he had not caught before.

He was so entranced by the red in Voldemort’s eyes that Harry failed to notice something nudge him in the back of his mind, snaking into his mind until the nudge became a pressure he was all too familiar with. Realization and horror dawned on Harry, but it was already too late to break the connection. He kicked out, struggling under Voldemort’s bruising grip.

Harry could not let Voldemort see.

He couldn’t. It would ruin everything if Voldemort knew. Harry tried to close his eyes, to turn his head away in panic, but Voldemort’s eyes were sucking him in. The connection refused to break despite all his efforts to get away, his kicking completely useless. Harry felt image by painful image flee from his mind—a kaleidoscope of scenes passing through his mind so rapidly Harry felt nauseous.

He saw the destruction of Tom Riddle’s diary, his arm embedding Basilisk venom deep into the pages. He saw the dark handsome features of a young Tom Riddle in Dumbledore’s memories flashing in his eyes, he saw the Dumbledore’s rotting arm after destroying Voldemort’s ring, he saw—

“No!” Harry roared, breaking the connection with the strength of his mind alone. Unsure, but grateful that he managed to force the intrusion out his brain. Harry heard Voldemort’s painful hiss as he did, a small victorious smile curving over his lips.

_Fuck off._

It was a hollow victory, one that Harry knew was quite temporary in the end. But it was a victory nevertheless. It hardly mattered that Voldemort was practically strangling him with his hand—the pressure was not enough to cut off air completely from his brain. Shockingly enough.

“Kill me, Tom. Isn’t this what you wanted? What you’ve been preparing to do since you came back?” Harry taunted, a malicious look in his eyes despite the panic swimming in the back of his mind. If he could provoke the man to kill him, then he could protect Hermione. No one would know where she would be in the dark, the cloak taking care of that. If he was dead, he would not need to worry about the secret burning in the back of his mind—of the damning reality that he was a—

“…Interesting. Are you hiding something from me, Harry? I can practically taste the distress in you, hidden beneath that false bravado on your skin.” Harry’s blood ran cold at the amused sound to Voldemort’s tone. Harry understood anger and rage—his mind had supplied rather damning evidence earlier. But amusement? Did the monster not care that parts of his soul were gone?

The man really had lost his bloody mind.

Harry immediately shut his eyes when Voldemort’s gaze snapped to his own, shuddering when Voldemort chuckled.

“Ah ah, I am not above ripping through your mind like parchment. I already know that filthy mudblood is here. I can simply…turn my attentions to her if you do not wish to cooperate.” Harry felt horror seize him, his green eyes snapping open to glare spitefully at the smirking man holding him up by the neck.

A second had not passed before Voldemort again was ripping into his mind once more.

Harry was screaming now, the discomfort from the earlier attempt paling in comparison to the hot blade slicing through his mind. Voldemort left no stone unturned, his amusement melting to anger and hatred with each passing second. Harry saw his memories flashing in his mind, horrified at what Voldemort was sifting through.

Harry saw Ron destroy the Locket, the sword cutting the image of Hermione and Harry kissing in the shadows. Harry saw the moment they had broken into Gringotts, stealing Hufflepuff’s cup from the fortress, Harry saw the Diadem swallowed by Fiendfye in the room of requirement—

Harry renewed his struggling once more, his determination giving way to desperation as each scene was revealed. He wanted to scream, his face scrunched into a painful grimace as Voldemort practically ripped his brain apart. It was pure agony—but Voldemort did not _stop._

Harry saw himself open the Snitch; the mysterious “I open at the close” riddle flashing in the dark before a small stone was revealed. Harry felt Voldemort’s recognition, Harry’s nausea and horror growing thicker as the dark lord drew closer to the more dangerous memories.

And almost as if sensing Harry’s distress, Voldemort delved further into Harry’s mind, pulling out the memory Harry tried to hide most.

The instant Harry learned he was Voldemort’s Horcrux.

Harry screamed when Voldemort ripped himself out of Harry’s mind—his red eyes wide in realization and fasciation all at once. Harry wanted to be sick.

“You would see that _I_ destroy myself?” Voldemort’s voice was a whisper, the shock in his eyes melting into rage. Harry felt like he was choking from the power of it—Voldemort’s magic coiling and snapping with his ire. His grip on Harry’s throat became so tight that even if he had wanted to answer, to spit in the face of this man, he would be unable to.

Harry’s throat was obstructed, and he struggled to breathe as Voldemort’s grip became tighter with each passing second. Harry hoped the man would kill him then.

Just one squeeze for too long, and Voldemort’s putrid soul would no longer be inside him. The monster, seemingly sensing this, loosened his grip. Harry felt bitter, uncaring of the fact that the dark lord no longer looked as murderous as he had mere seconds before.

_I should be dead._

“No, _death_ will never touch you. Neither by my hand nor from your own.” Voldemort hissed, and Harry just panicked, his hands grabbing tightly onto Voldemort's wrists. Harry’s emotions smashed into him like a train; horror and realization that he will never be able to defeat Voldemort crying for an out.

“I will die. I will find a way to die.” Harry denied immediately. He’d find a way. If it wasn’t Voldemort that did it, someone else _would_.

And then, to Harry’s utter dismay, Voldemort laughed. It sounded like the devil.

“Oh? And abandon your mudblood pet? How callous of you, Harry.” Harry was thunderstruck when at the corner of his eye, he saw Voldemort make a gesture in the dark, the sizzling in the air clear indication that Voldemort had cast magic.

Harry was about to ask what the man was doing, but his breath caught in his throat when he saw Hermione’s unconscious form manifest beside the dark lord.

Her hair was in complete disarray, his invisibility cloak no longer wrapped around her. Harry tried to think of what to do—his fear ballooning into panic when Voldemort pressed his wand to her throat. the sight of the wooden stick a reminder of the fact that he himself had not even brought a wand. He had expected to die. He never dreamed that everything would be turned on its head.

He was bloody helpless.

Everything was so fucked, Harry did not even know where to begin.

“Nothing to say, Harry? Is she worth nothing at all to you? Perhaps I should kill her now and take the other obnoxious friend of yours instead.” Voldemort’s tone was light, but Harry hardly registered that. Harry was staring hard at Hermione’s face, willing her to awaken or to move. He _needed_ her to move, to do something.

He couldn’t be the reason for her death—the guilt would be too much.

Voldemort slid his wand up her cheek, and that snapped Harry immediately from his thoughts.

“ _No.”_ Harry shouted, his voice echoing in the heavy silence that had fallen in the field. “ _Don’t kill her please._ ” He begged, hating just how pitiful he sounded. Voldemort did not lower his wand, but the quirk in his lip was indication enough that he was not going to harm Hermione.

At least, Harry hoped it was not.

It grated on his nerves just how smug the dark lord looked, but Harry had to swallow his pride. If he did something stupid and Hermione died, he could never forgive himself. This was for Hermione. It was no longer just about him.

“Perhaps mudbloods do have their uses after all.” Voldemort mused, watching the way Harry trembled with poorly repressed rage. “She has certainly turned the tides ultimately in my favor.”

Harry wanted to shout at him for talking about her that way. He made her sound like a thing—more creature than human. It made Harry burn—Voldemort was a half-blood. He had muggle blood in his veins.

The fucking _hypocrite._

“Her presence will be…an insurance. I expect full compliance or I _will_ punish her in your stead. My generosity can only go so far.” Harry swallowed around his rage to nod simply, afraid that if he opened his mouth he would say something he’d regret.

He needed to be strong for Hermione.

Voldemort quirked his head for a moment, before yanking Harry further into his own space by his neck. His face was so close that Harry could smell Voldemort’s breath. It smelled faintly of blood and something else—a pungent scent that Harry tried his best not to back away from.

“Your compliance for her life, and her submission for her own protection. It is your choice, Harry.” Harry wanted to spit at him, but reigned it in. Voldemort was truly testing his patience.

Harry grit his teeth, cutting his gaze away from Voldemort’s smug face to look at Hermione’s own sleeping one. It really wasn’t a choice—the monster would do as he damned well please really.

It made Harry suspicious of what the man’s intentions were. Harry knew that there was no real need for him to keep Hermione alive. He had Harry, and although keeping her around ensured Harry’s compliance, what else could Voldemort possible gain from this?

But it hardly mattered what his motives were, Harry was pinned into a rather uncomfortable position.

_Shit._

“Yes.” Harry finally bit out, ignoring Voldemort’s pleased hum.

“An excellent choice.”

Harry could not help but feel like he'd made a huge mistake.


End file.
